CHAPTER IIGOOD NEWS
Downin the dark depths of the old well, Ted Martin heard what his sister called in such frightened tones.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
A moment later he learned on his own account. For the bucket rope having slipped off the windlass, from which it had rotted away, tumbled down the well. It caught for a moment on a projecting stone, and then went down into the depths. It fell partly on top of Ted’s head as he stepped off the edge of the bucket on to the pile of dried sticks and leaves which had blown and tumbled into the well during the years it had not been in use.
“Oh, Teddy!” cried Janet. “The rope came loose and it fell down!”
“I know it did,” Ted answered. For the rope was coiled about him.
“Then how are you going to get up?” Janet wanted to know. “How are you going to get up out of the well when I can’t wind up the rope?”
To this Ted made answer:
“I don’t know, Jan. I guess I’m in a sort of pickle. But wait a minute. Don’t run away and leave me!”
Janet had no such idea. She wouldn’t desert Ted in trouble.
While the little fellow is down in the old, dry well, trying to think of a way to get out, and while Janet is also puzzling her head over the same matter, I will take just a moment to let my new readers know something about the Curlytops.
I have told you the reason for their nickname. They had been christened in this order: Theodore Baradale Martin, who was called Ted or Teddy, except when he had done something wrong, and then he heard his full name spoken. Next came Janet Louise Martin, which was shortened into Janet or Jan. She was just a year younger than Ted. Last of all was William Anthony Martin. He was “Trouble,” you know.
Mr. Richard Martin, the father of Trouble and the Curlytops, was the owner of alarge, general store in Cresco, in one of our eastern states. In the first book of this series, called “The Curlytops at Cherry Farm,” I related how the children went to visit Grandpa Martin on his wonderful farm, and I told you what happened after they reached there. During other vacation seasons the children traveled to Star Island, they were snowed in, visited Uncle Frank’s ranch, and camped on Silver Lake with Uncle Ben. The children had some queer pets, as you may learn by reading another book, and they had many playmates with whom they had jolly times. After a trip to the woods, the children found something in the sand, as told in the book just before this, called “The Curlytops at Sunset Beach.”
After the summer at the shore the Martin family returned to Cresco. Through the long winter Janet and Ted played in the snow. Then came spring. Now it was summer again and the long vacation had arrived.
“And it means a lot of work, too,” sighed Mrs. Martin, on the last day of school. “I’m sure I don’t know what the children will do with so much time on their hands!”
But this did not worry Ted, Janet or Trouble. They knew they could have fun, and one of the ways hit on by Ted and his sister was to play “diamond mine,” as we find them doing at the old well when this story opens.
“Do you think you can get out, Ted?” his sister called anxiously down into the depths of the dark well.
“I don’t know,” was Ted’s answer. “But don’t go away. I’m going to try to climb up, Jan.”
“How you going to climb up?” the little girl wanted to know.
“Well, there’s a lot of stones sticking out on the sides. They’re like steps, and maybe I can get up on them.”
Ted tried; but though a man or an older boy might have managed to hoist himself out of the well in this way, it was beyond the strength of the Curlytop lad. He got up a little way but slipped back to the soft bed of dried leaves at the bottom of the well.
“Did you hurt yourself?” asked Jan anxiously, as she heard her brother grunt as he slipped back.
“No, I didn’t hurt myself,” he answered. “But I jiggled myself a little.”
Ted’s use of the word “jiggled” reminded Jan that she had left Trouble “jiggling” the sieve at the pile of sand. She wondered if her little brother was all right, but she did not want to leave Ted in order to make sure.
However, she did not need to do this for just as Ted called up to her that he was going to try to toss up the rope, so she could fasten it to the windlass, Janet saw her little brother coming along a path that she and Ted had trampled through the weeds.
“Oh, now I is found you!” remarked Trouble, with a smile on his cute, dirty little face. “I is found you! Here is Jan, Mother!” he called more loudly. “I is found her!”
“Is mother looking for us?” asked Janet.
“Yes, Jan,” answered the voice of Mrs. Martin herself. “I told you and Teddy to amuse William, and I find him all alone sifting sand. Not but what he was having fun, but I thought you would stay with him. I asked him where you went and he pointed off this way. Why, what are you doing at the old well?” went on the mother who, having followed Trouble along the weed-grownpath, now saw Janet standing near the curbing and windlass. “What are you doing there?” she repeated.
“Teddy—now—Teddy—he’s down there!” gasped Jan, pointing.
“Teddy in the well!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin. “Is he——”
“There isn’t any water in it,” Janet hastened to add, and then Mrs. Martin herself remembered that her husband had told her that same fact. So she asked more calmly:
“How did Teddy get down in the well?” She hurried forward, keeping a tight hold of Trouble’s hand, so he wouldn’t slip into the black depths.
“We were playing diamond mine,” Janet began to explain, when Ted, at the bottom of the well, heard his mother’s voice and cried:
“I’m all right! I can get up if you can fasten the rope to the windlass, or lower a ladder to me!”
“Oh, Teddy! Why did you ever go down there?” cried Mrs. Martin, as she leaned over the curbing and looked down. “You shouldn’t have done such a thing!”
“I didn’t mean to get stuck down here, Mother!” the boy answered. He could lookup and see his mother quite plainly, for she was in the sunlight. But she could hardly see him at the bottom of the well.
“The rope slipped off,” explained Janet.
“If we had a cowboy here he could lasso Teddy up,” said Trouble, with a laugh.
“Yes, but we haven’t any cowboy,” said Mrs. Martin. “Jan, you run and tell Patrick to come here. Tell him to bring a ladder. I hope we have one long enough. Hurry, Jan!”
Now that her mother was on the scene, Janet felt sure that Teddy would soon be out of the well. As she hastened back toward the house, she saw Patrick working in the garden.
“Please take a long ladder to the old well so Teddy can get out, Patrick,” she begged. “Hurry!”
“What’s that, Jan?” asked the man of all work.
When the little girl had explained, Patrick ran off toward the barn, chuckling to himself and saying:
“They call the little one ‘Trouble,’ but I’m not sure but what it would be a good name for the other two. Sure, they’re intotwice as much mischief as William! It’s a good thing the well is dry!”
Patrick was on his way to the well, carrying a long ladder, which, he told Janet, would surely reach the bottom, and the little girl was following him when she saw her father coming around the house by a side path.
It was not usual for Mr. Martin to come home from his store in the middle of the afternoon. When he did, something extraordinary nearly always happened, and this time Janet thought he had heard about Teddy. So she said:
“He’s all right now, Daddy! We’ll soon have him out!”
“Who’s all right? Who’s going to be out soon?” asked Mr. Martin, much puzzled. “And what are you going to do with that ladder, Patrick?”
“Sure an’ I’m going to get Teddy out of the old well.”
“Out of the old well?” cried Mr. Martin. “Do you mean to tell me Ted has fallen down there?”
“He didn’t perzacklyfallin,” said Janet. “I let him down by the rope, but the rope slipped off and he’s down there. Hecouldn’t climb out, so mother told Patrick to bring the ladder.”
“Oh, well, if your mother’s there I guess matters will soon be all right,” said Mr. Martin, breathing more easily. “Why did you children go to that well? We must fill it up at once, Patrick.”
“Yes, sir. I was going to do it this afternoon. But they got ahead of me, the Curlytops did.”
Mr. Martin hurried on with Patrick, helping him carry the ladder, while Janet followed. Mrs. Martin and Trouble were still standing at the well curbing, and when Mrs. Martin saw her husband she, too, thought he had come home because of what had happened to Ted.
Then, as she knew he could not have heard of it at the store, she said to Mr. Martin:
“Is anything wrong? Why did you come home at this time of day?”
“Everything is all right,” replied Mr. Martin, with a smile. “I came home to tell you some good news. But first we must get Teddy out of the well.”
Mr. Martin leaned over and looked down into the depths. Ted saw his father and called to him:
“I’m all right!”
“I’m glad of it,” was the answer. “We’re going to lower the ladder down to you so you can climb up. Stand to one side so it won’t hit you.”
And as her father and Patrick lowered the ladder into the well, Janet wondered what good news it was that had brought Mr. Martin home in the middle of the afternoon.